“You’re still here,” she murmurs.
“Wild horses couldn’t pull me away.” I kiss her shoulder. “Where else would I be, baby?”
“I don’t know.” She yawns. “Doing cowboy stuff. Brooding. Acting all guilty for ‘taking liberties.’”
My hand slides around to cup her breast. “I plan on taking a lot more liberties with you. Taking ‘em over and over, and over again.”
She looks at me for a moment with those blue eyes at half-mast and then she smiles and wriggles her ass against my erection. “What are you waiting for, then?”
I tilt her face back towards me for a kiss before sliding my hand between her legs.
I fuck her soft and slow and Sunday-morning lazy. And afterwards, we lie there in the gold light and listen to the meadowlark and this time I don't say anything because there's nothing that needs saying.
Later, at least two rounds of sex and a nap later, her stomach rumbles, and I realize I’m failing at my responsibility to feed my girl.
She showers first. I make coffee, standing in the kitchen in Montana State University sweatpants with bare feet on the warm hardwood.
Jonah won't be back from my dad's until noon. The ranch work can wait another hour.
I don’t remember the last time I took a full day off but today feels like a good time to start.
I find the pancake mix in the back of the cabinet. Real maple syrup from the farm stand down the road. I set the cast iron on the burner and let it heat slow.
Sadie comes into the kitchen with her hair damp and loose, wearing one of my t-shirts and a pair of my cotton boxers rolled up at her hips. She smells like my soap. I love her natural scent most of all, but her smelling like me is pretty damn good too.
She goes straight for the coffee, wraps both hands around the mug I've already poured for her, takes a long sip with her eyes closed.
“Perfect,” she says. “Have I ever thanked you for always leaving a fresh pot of coffee for me?”
“Nope.”
Sheleans against the counter beside me while I pour the first round of batter. “How rude of me.”
I set the spatula down.
“Told you,” I murmur. “You’re a brat.”
I turn and take the coffee mug out of her hands and set it on the counter. I put my hands on her waist and lift her up onto the counter in one motion. Stepping between her knees, I kiss her. My hands slide up her bare thighs. She kisses me back, her hands coming up into my hair, her fingers curling there.
I pull back just far enough to look at her with her hair damp, cheeks flushed, sitting on my kitchen counter in the morning light.
I know I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to get back to this specific moment.
I kiss her again. Slower this time.
Her legs wrap around me, ankles crossing at my back, pulling me in. I get my hands under the hem of her t-shirt and spread them flat against the warm skin of her waist. She shivers but I know it isn’t from the cold.
My hands slide further up her thighs, pushing the hem of her shorts up. No matter that we’ve had sex at least three times in the last twelve hours. My cock is hard and ready to go again and I know I’ll never get enough of her.
I kiss back up her throat. Along her jaw. Find her mouth again and she meets me there, both hands cupping my face now.
The morning is gold and warm around us and the whole world is just this kitchen, this woman in my hands on a Sunday summer morning.
The smell hits us at the same time.
Along with the smoke.
We break apart. I spin around to find the firstround of pancakes have gone way past done. Black at the edges, the wreckage of the butter smoking in the cast iron.
